If you have a marketing blog, you’ll know the importance of ranking high in Google and other search engines. It is, after all, how most people are probably going to find you. The question is, how do you do this — especially if you have a new blog? Well, the answer isn’t easy: you may, in fact, have a bit of an upward battle ahead of you. The competition for eyeballs grows every day and most of these new bloggers know their way around search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines have also become more savvy over the years at figuring out what content has the highest value, which means you have a rough road ahead in terms of convincing them you should rank above everyone else.

It’s no longer about how many keywords you stuff into a blog post, it’s about how comprehensive and useful it is. Longer posts tend to get better rewarded — so long as you’re not putting the same keyword into every single paragraph and header. Still, what techniques should you use when it comes to making your blog rank higher in Google? This post will tell you a few of them.

The other side of this equation is to be publishing quality content regularly. The more you publish, the more often search engines are going to visit you, and you may tend to rank higher as a result.

Put Your Content on Social Media

If you want to get higher rankings in Google, you have to promote your own content. You can do this by putting your blog posts on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. If you put your content in more and more places online, Google will start collecting more information on it.

Are you looking for marketing support? Let's connect and have a real conversation about what you need and how we can help. Send us a quick email!

The other upshot is that if you provide crucial content to your social media following, they will start to visit your site and increase their engagement through their own social media channels. This creates backlinks to your content pages, which can help you rank higher in Google.

Just be sure that you aren’t “spamming” your followers. Always have useful information to share, but if you’re following tactic No. 1 up above, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Use Different Keywords and Keyword Phrases

If you’re going to focus on keywords at all, make sure that you’re using their synonyms, too. Use related phrases and concepts. Think of different ways your audience might look for information, and tailor your content to that. This will help you avoid “keyword stuffing” and be more useful and friendly to your audience, which will impact how highly your post ranks. However, try to be organic in your approach and use the keywords naturally. Otherwise, your content will look like it’s spam, and that can negatively impact your site ranking.

Be sure to add a keyword or two to your title, mostly the ones you want to be ranked for. Use focused keywords, not broad keywords. The more niche-like your keyword is, the more likely you’re going to rank higher for it.

Link to Older Articles That Are Relevant

Backlinks are a great way to get some of that “Google juice” happening. And one of the safer ways to do it is to link to older articles on your own site. If you already have an article published that’s related to something you’re now writing, link to it. You’ll help your SEO and also give the reader something of high value.

However, if you link to a page that has nothing to do with the current topic at hand, you’ll be doing more harm than good. So be judicious when using this tactic. Don’t link to something solely because you’ve noticed that a page isn’t ranking as well as it used to. And be sure to have relevant information in the text of your link — don’t just write “click here”.

Make Sure You’re Optimized for Mobile

Google is now saying that most searches from 10 countries have come from mobile devices. So you want to make sure that users can successfully view and search for your content on a smartphone or tablet. Make sure you do the following two things to get the most from this audience:

Ensure your pages, menus and posts are optimized for mobile.

Consider the different behaviours mobile versus personal computers may have in visiting your site, and tailor your content for that.

Are there any additional tips or strategies that you have for getting the most for your blog’s SEO buck? If so, feel free to comment below and tell us.